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My name is Lo Marshall, and I’m a Senior Research Fellow at The Bartlett, a role I share with Dr Ala’a Shehabi. Our work revolves around equality, diversity and inclusion in the Faculty and within the Built Environment. As part of these roles, Ala’a does brilliant work co-running The Forum for Racialised Minorities | Global majority, and I have the pleasure of dedicating my time to co-organising B.Queer activities with Jordana Ramalho, Ben Campkin and Sé Tunnacliffe.

B.Queer, The Bartlett’s forum for LGBTQIA+ students, staff and allies, established in March 2020, is a space for LGBTQIA+ staff and students to connect, build community, suggest, lead and participate in events and share our research and other interests. Since January this year, we have hosted monthly social meetups on Wednesday afternoons, which have been a wonderful opportunity to connect within LGBTQ+ people across The Bartlett faculty in an informal space. For LGBTQ+ History Month in February, we screened the fantastic documentary Rebel Dykes, and in May as part of our Queering Urbanism series, we hosted a fascinating conversation on between Dr Sarah Ensor (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Professor Tim Waterman (UCL).

Earlier in June, Jordana and I had the opportunity to contribute to the Bartlett’s Inclusive Spaces series, by co-hosting a conversation with Joshua Mardell and Adam Nathaniel Furman, the editors of the book , an invaluable archive of an incredible range of queer spaces across the globe.  In March, I had the privilege of hosting a to session to mark Trans Day of Visibility, which featured excellent contributions by Carman Abouamra (Development Planning Unit, UCL) and Carla Ecola (), who each shared vital insights on challenges faced by trans and non-binary people who are less visible within society, with a focus on trans and queer migration and LGBTQ+ homelessness. As part of our Queering Urbanism series, I’m currently producing a podcast mini-series called Community Building(s) that explores non-profit LGBTQ+ community spaces in London and will be released in Autumn 2023.

Though we’re only halfway through the year, B. Queer are already making plans for next academic year. We are delighted to have been awarded funding from Õ¬ÄÐÊÓƵ LGBTQ+ Equality Implementation Group (LEIG) to support a Queer Bloomsbury Tour, and a Queering Urbanism: Community Building(s) workshop that will exploring inclusivity and accessibility in London’s LGBTQ+ community spaces. Next year, we will continue our monthly meetups, which will include informal thematic discussion and visits to spaces like The Bishopsgate Institutes LGBTQ+ archives. We are also in the process of lining up an exciting programme of speakers for Queering Urbanisms.

Get involved with the B.Queer Forum

To get involved with B.Queer’s activities, you can join our Ìý´Ç°ù . Please note, you must be logged into the Õ¬ÄÐÊÓƵ network (either via eduroam if on campus or VPN if working remotely) to access the mailing list subscription page. If you do not have access to the Õ¬ÄÐÊÓƵ network, you can subscribe to the list by emailing bartlett-bqueer-join@ucl.ac.uk.

If you would like to run your own B.Queer event, or propose an activity, we would love to hear from you! Please feel free to reach out to me directly lo.marshall@ucl.ac.uk.